Install Expect in Windows with Activetcl/tk

OBJECTIVE:
This is a tutorial on how to get Expect to run on windows.
The steps are shown below. This is for those who installed a version of
 activetcl that is above 8.4.9.X.Expect might not be installed by default.If you installed activetcl version  8.4.9.16 you have expect installed by default.The download link can be found here:
http://www.activestate.com/activetcl/downloads


STEPS
1. Download ActiveTcl here http://www.activestate.com/activetcl/downloads

2. After installing which is pretty straight forward,configure your environmental variable path to point to :C:\Tcl\bin(or your install directory/bin)

3. Expect might not be installed by default so in the command line run :
     > teacup install Expect

4. if you want to see other commands related to teacup use the "teacup help"

   C:\temp>teacup help

    teacup.exe
    is a tool to access package repositories

        teacup.exe help cmds-by-group   Grouped list of commands provided by tea
cup
        teacup.exe help commands        Alphabetical list of commands provided b
y teacup
        teacup.exe help help            How to use help
        teacup.exe help options         Describes the standard options
        teacup.exe help queries         Describe the syntax of complex queries

C:\temp>teacup help commands

    commands -- Alphabetical list of commands provided by teacup

    Use 'help <commandname>' to get detailed help for a command.

    teacup.exe archive     Manage archives
    teacup.exe cache       Manage cache settings
    teacup.exe create      Create installation repository
    teacup.exe default     Manage installation repository
    teacup.exe delete      Delete installation repository
    teacup.exe describe    Describe package found in an archive
    teacup.exe get         Get archive file of package found in an archive
    teacup.exe install     Get and install a package found in an archive or file

    teacup.exe keys        List meta data keys found in the archives
    teacup.exe link        Manage links between installation repositories and tc
l shells
    teacup.exe list        List packages found in the archives
    teacup.exe log         Manage the log of installed/removed packages
    teacup.exe profiles    Find and list profile packages found in the archives
    teacup.exe proxy       Manage proxying
    teacup.exe regenerate  Recreate broken toplevel pkgIndex.tcl files
    teacup.exe remove      Remove installed packages
    teacup.exe search      Search and list packages using complex queries
    teacup.exe setup       Enable tcl shells to handle installation repositories

    teacup.exe timeout     Manage timeout
    teacup.exe update      Update local repository from the archives.
    teacup.exe update-self Get newest revision of teacup.exe for the platform
    teacup.exe version     Print version of teacup.exe
    teacup.exe verify      Check a repository for problems.
    teacup.exe who         Print description of teacup.exe

C:\temp>

OTHERS

you can learn a lot also by looking at the demo application of tcl/tk and the source code related to it. Here is some screenshot about how you can access the demos directory and see demos source codes.

                                                               

Expect script example

We will use an expect script to telnet to a router in GNS3 but you can do it with a real router if you want.You just need to turn on a router and check its console port number and telnet to it using "telnet 127.0.0.1 <console number>" to get access to the GNS3 router .

The script we will use to access the router and check its loopback config.

------ test.tcl 

  package require Expect

  spawn telnet 127.0.0.1 2001

    expect "#" { exp_send "\r"}

  expect "#" { exp_send "sh run int lo0\r"}

  expect "#" { exp_send "\r" }

  exit

-------

This represents the router config of loopback 0
from putty

                           Now lets run the expect script to check it

done